11:05am Wednesday 8th July 2009
Brimming over with history, the village of Aycliffe has too many tales to tell. Chris Lloyd savours a few and passes another milestone in his life.
EVERY house in a County Durham village has received a 90-minute DVD telling its history.
The project, in Aycliffe Village, has been financed with the help of a £10,000 grant from the National Lottery.
Even though the film, packed with old pictures and residents telling of their memories and family stories, runs for 90 minutes, Aycliffe Local History Society had so much material left over that it has produced a companion booklet.
Together with the society’s website, there is a wealth of information and a cornucopia of pictures. Here are some snippets:
AYCLIFFE AND OAKS
OVER the course of the last millennium, the name of the settlement has been written as anything from Acle to Acheleia to Aicliff to Yackley.
How can we make sense of that?
Most historians say that the beginning sound “ay”
comes from the word “oak”.
We know this was a very woody area. For example, in 1606, King James I wrote to the Keeper of Aycliffe Wood at Durham Cathedral and accused him of “spoiling and wasting” the trees.
In 1644, the Government sent the keeper a letter demanding that he provide timber for the repair of bridges and highways – this may well have been the last of the Aycliffe oaks.
Some people say this oaky theory is supported by Aycliffe’s proximity to “auckland” – the land of oaks.
But historians, being contrary fellows, feel that “auckland” really derives from “alclit” meaning “additional land”. Bishop Auckland is the Bishop’s additional land and has nothing to do with oaks.
Anyway, we know there were oaks at Aycliffe.
There are other sounds in the name as well. There’s “leia”, that would mean “leaf” to go with the oaky theme. Or it could be spelt “ley”, which would mean a clearing, or it could be “leigh”, which is usually a shelter or haven.
So some sort of clearing or shelter within an oak forest.
Or could the “cliff” ending simply mean some oaks on the top of a cliff – after all, there are several smallish cliffs around the quarries.
School Aycliffe has nothing to do with education. In Viking times, the landowner there was a chap called Scula.
GREAT NORTH ROAD
THE main thoroughfare from London to Scotland swept along Aycliffe’s narrow High Street, veering sharply east to take it through the heart of the village.
The road provided work for blacksmiths and then motor mechanics, and custom for the three coaching inns – the North Briton, the Royal Telegraph and the Ram.
Because of the narrowness and sharpness, in 1934 the High Street was remodelled.
It was widened, so the North Briton was demolished and set back, and it was straightened, which required the removal of a terrace of houses. This meant traffic no longer had to veer into the village, and the loss of passing trade accounted for the Ram. In 1969, the Durham section of the A1(M) opened and Aycliffe found that it no longer stood on the Great North Road. Now it was merely on the A167.
QUARRIES
AYCLIFFE sits beside a limestone outcrop, which provided work for quarrymen and limeburners.
There were two quarries – western and eastern – which were connected by a tunnel beneath the Great North Road. The tunnel was big enough for the quarries’ little railway engine to shunt trucks through it and onto the main line.
Lime was burnt in kilns to create fertiliser for agriculture. Percy “Jack”
Johnson, who was born in the village in 1916, recalls a large kiln next to the Great North Road. Tramps were frequently found sleeping in it when it wasn’t in use, attracted by its residual warmth.
Unfortunately, they were on occasions found dead – overwhelmed by the fumes.
The quarries fell dormant after the Second World War and filled with water. The western quarry has been landfilled in the past 30 years. The eastern quarry is still operational as a quarry, landfill site and recycling centre.
THE RAILWAY
ON April 15, 1844, Aycliffe station opened on the new main line between Darlington and Newcastle.
The last train stopped at the station on February 28, 1953.
AN AYCLIFFE MYSTERY
ONE of the side streets off the Great North Road is called The Orlands. What are orlands? No one knows, but there is a theory that they are connected to the French town of Orleans.
MILLS
THE River Skerne provided the water power to drive numerous mills in the Aycliffe area, from Preston-le-Skerne in the north to Coatham mill in the south.
In 1828, a directory records: “About 100 of the inhabitants are employed in weaving linen for the Darlington manufacturers, and on the east side of the village a paper mill and corn mill are put in motion by the streams of the Skerne, which frequently overflow their low banks and inundate the adjoining meadows.”
At Aycliffe, there is also a windmill, derelict until its recent conversion into a house, but even the local history society hasn’t discovered much about it.
■ Many thanks to everyone at Aycliffe Local History Society. Indeed congratulations to them, and film-makers Ken Fox and Phil Dorman, for recording their village’s past in such a superb multimedia fashion.
There are still a few copies of the DVD left, and it can be bought with the booklet for £5. Call 01325- 319196. Visit the website at aycliffehistory.org.uk
OTHERS far more awake noticed that Channel 4’s Time Team was filming in Piercebridge last week for next year’s series.
Precisely how the Romans’ Dere Street crossed the River Tees at Piercebridge is another of the area’s great mysteries, deepened a few years ago when divers discovered regular holes cut into the riverbed – were these the foundations of the bridge?
Dave Middlemas, of Merrybent, was one of those to get in touch – his full email is on the Memories’ blog.
He concludes: “The downside of all this is the disgraceful way in which the excavated fort at Piercebridge seems to have been neglected.
“It is almost sure to feature in the programme and I do not think the grass has been cut once this year. It was previously kept in good order, but it now resembles heaps of rubble just sticking out of rough pasture or meadow grass.
“Another few months and we’ll need another team of archaeologists to uncover it again.”
One of the other topics the Memories blog is running with at the moment is the fate of Eastbourne School, in Darlington, a Thirties building that is due to be demolished when this term ends.
Among the comments, Mrs AC Lea says “demolition is an absolute disgrace”.
Stephen Beaton suggests it should be converted into a hostel for homeless people and Mr RC Lee wants it turned into a new town hall so that the current “monstrosity” can be demolished.
Anne Gibbon wishes the old school could have been incorporated into the new academy, saying: “A fine building at the centre of a school lends gravitas, a sense of purpose and history, which transcends time.”
But Judith Robb says: “Having worked at Eastbourne for many years, I remember leaking glass corridors upstairs with buckets and puddles on the floor when it rained. Classrooms which were too hot to teach in when the sun shone in summer.
“Let the old building go.
Memories remain forever.”
■ Go to the blog for further opinions and updates on other Memories stories, and leave your comments. It can be found at northernecho.co.uk/blogs
THIS may prove embarrassing, but last week Echo Memories was astounded and delighted when driving to talk to the Glaxo Retired Staff Club in Barnard Castle to discover a new milestone.
This column has a strange fascination with milestones.
It has also been driving the A67 from Darlington to Barney for 20 years, yet this particular milestone has never revealed itself before.
Perhaps I’ve just been driving with my eyes shut.
But even the mapmakers at the Ordnance Survey appear to have missed it.
Yet there it is, bold as a stone, as you head westwards and drop down into Gainford.
It would appear that someone has recently discovered it in the overgrowth and cleared the way to make it visible.
They’ve even given it a coat of paint – splashing a nearby nettle in the process.
It is the same shape and style as the other milestones along what was the Stockton to Darlington to Barnard Castle turnpike.
In 1747, an Act of Parliament gave permission for the creation of a turnpike trust to improve the road.
The trustees promised to give the necessary funds to pay for the improvements and, in return, they were allowed to put barriers – or turnpikes – across the road to collect payment from road users. Milestones were put along the roadside to help travellers work out how far they had travelled and how much they had to pay.
Our new discovery, therefore, may well be 250 years old. What a thing!
Naturally enough, I had to inspect it more closely, and on the journey home pulled over into a drive.
And there in front of the bonnet was a superb late 16th Century Grade II listed manor house, called Greystone Hall, which I never knew existed.
I must indeed have been driving with my eyes clamped shut all these years.
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